County Down Towns - Hillsborough, Down

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Towns D-H (21-25)	Towns displayed are H-K (26-30)	Towns K-M (31-35)

398. Hillsborough

The village of Hillsborough 10 miles south of Belfast, is something of a showpiece. Many of the Georgian townhouses along the steep main street are craft and antique shops. Across the square with its charming market house, the mansion visible through a pair of magnificent wrought-iron gates is Hillsborough Castle, formerly the residence of the governor of Northern Ireland.

On the other side of the square, beyond an oval lawn, Hillsborough Fort was built by colonel Arthur Hill in 1650 to command the road from Dublin to Carrickfergus. A prominent feature of the east and south approaches to Hillsborough is a 5-mile wall surrounding this lake and its adjoining forest.

Services in Hillsborough

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Craft Shops, Bus Hire / Services, Heritage Centres, Forts (Historical), Homes (Historical), Festivals and Fairs, Angling, Lakes, Pubs, Town Information, Restaurants

399. Hilltown

The many pubs of Hilltown, eight in the high street, are a legacy from eighteenth century smugglers who shared out their contraband here. The village has a livestock market on alternate Saturdays, a picturesque sheep fair and festival in early July and a large sale of rams in September. The Georgian market house opposite St John's parish church (1766) adjoins the old hostelry, the Downshire Arms. The weathervane on the pretty cupola is a fish, a reminder of the good fishing in the Bann and its tributaries. The forge at Katesbridge 10 miles downstream has a similar vane.

Services in Hilltown

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Angling, Self Catering

400. Holywood

Holywood is a affluent satellite town of Belfast. The clock tower of its old priory, dating from the thirteenth century, is floodlit at night. An abbey founded in woods here in AD620 by St Laiseran was connected with the larger Abbey at Bangor.

Services in Holywood

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Railway Museums, Motte (Historical), Taxi Services, Hostels, Museums, Golf, Sports Centres, Pubs, Specialist Food & Drink, Restaurants, Craft Centres

401. Kilkeel

The harbour at Kilkeel bustles with the province's largest fleet, and is busiest during landings and at auction time when fish, including herring, are sold on the quay. There are fish-processing factories around the port, pleasure angling off the piers and miles of lobster pots along the coast. The town has winding streets, terraced shops and houses with stepped pavements, and a bend in the middle round the ruins of the Old Church, a fifteenth-century church with a sixth-century predecessor from which the town took its name - cill caol ('church at the narrows').

Services in Kilkeel